One in five new teachers feels under-prepared to front the classroom and half of them don't see themselves staying in the profession beyond 10 years, according to a new survey out today.
The Australian Education Union's 2008 New Educators Survey questioned 1545 new teachers about their pre-service education and preparation for the job.
It found 21 per cent of first-year teachers rated their pre-service education as ''poor or very poor'' and only a third rated it ''satisfactory''.
Another 87 per cent did not think their training adequately prepared them for dealing with difficult parents and colleagues.
When asked whether they would remain in the public education system, 50 per cent of first-year teachers said they did not see themselves continuing teaching beyond 10 years.
Workload, pay, class sizes and behaviour management ranked as the top four concerns for new teachers.
The union's federal president, Angelo Gavrielatos, said the survey should ring alarm bells for the Federal Government as it faced an impending nationwide teacher shortage crisis.
''Not only are new teachers under-prepared when they enter the classroom, close to half have never received mentoring or ongoing induction and nearly a third have been asked to teach outside their area of expertise,'' Mr Gavrielatos said.
He said the findings showed how ''ill-conceived the Federal Government's plans are with respect to fast-tracking graduates from areas like commerce, law and science into teaching by providing only six weeks of training''.
''Letting people into the classroom who are not properly qualified to teach is a mistake and is simply a quick-fix solution to solving teacher shortages,'' Mr Gavrielatos said. ''The key to maintaining high standards in public education is by ensuring that every teacher has a formal teaching qualification.
''We must safeguard high quality, high standard pre-service and in-service teacher education and training, mentoring and support.''
Mr Gavrielatos said the Commonwealth needed to invest more heavily in teacher education and training to better prepare new teachers to deal with the realities of the 21st century classroom and to keep them in the profession longer.
''Despite many new teachers showing great dedication for their profession, workload, pay, class sizes and behaviour management continue to drive new teachers out of the classroom.''
As with previous surveys of new teachers, the latest data found the top four priority concerns were workload (with 68.5 per cent of new teachers citing it as their top concern), behaviour management (66.1 per cent), pay (62.9 per cent), and class sizes (62.6 per cent).
Another 32.6 per cent of new teachers reported they had been asked to teach outside of their area of expertise and qualifications.
Of these, secondary school teachers reported the highest incidence of this happening, with 51.6 per cent working outside their subject areas.
''To successfully attract quality new teachers to the public education system, we need to better prepare and support them so they can make a long-term contribution to the education of our children,'' Mr Gavrielatos said.
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